Jacob Returns to Bethel

35 God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and settle there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”^{(A) 2} So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your clothes;^{(B) 3} then come, let us go up to Bethel, that I may make an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.”^{(C) 4} So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had and the rings that were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak that was near Shechem.^(D)

⁵ As they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities all around them, so that no one pursued them.^{(E) 6} Jacob came to Luz, that is, Bethel, which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him,^{(F) 7} and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel,^[a] because it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother.^{(G) 8} And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So it was called Allon-bacuth.^[b](H)